I don’t process my emotions, I outsource them to Spotify. Give me two hours, a slightly unstable mood, and I will find a perfect song that explains everything better than I ever could. And not every song gets it, some are too much, some are not enough, and some are just… wrong. I’m looking for the one that feels like the artist consulted my life before writing it. That one song with that single line, which hits home, and I just sit there like, “Okay, wow, that’s actually a little bit invasive.” It’s almost unsettling how accurate it feels, like a random song understands me better than I do at that moment.
And once I find the song, that’s it. I don’t need to explain what I’m feeling, or even need to fully understand it myself. The song says everything. I just sit with it, replay it, and let it do all the heavy lifting. I might even add it to my Instagram notes, like that would explain everything, and honestly, somewhere in my head, it kind of does. It feels easier to present a feeling than to unpack it.
Posting songs on Instagram notes comes with a very specific kind of delusion that the right person will pick up on it instantly. Not just see it, but listen to it and go, “wait… could this be about me?” And I’m not saying I expect it, but I’m also not not expecting it. I won’t text them directly, obviously. That would require emotional clarity and communication skills. I would much rather post a song that is so painfully specific it might as well have his name in the background vocals.
Something subtle enough to pass as casual, but specific enough to mean something if you’re paying attention. I’ll act like it’s all casual, but it’s always a little serious. There’s that quiet hope within me that someone, somewhere, will understand exactly what I meant without me having to say it out loud. That they’ll hear the lyric the same way I did, pause at the same line, and just know. There would be no need for explanations or awkward conversations, just recognition.
The strange thing is, music doesn’t just help me avoid saying things. It also ends up saying things for me, sometimes to people I wasn’t even trying to reach. Like when my Spotify gets a little too committed to Sombr and a friend texts me, “Wanna get ice cream and talk?” And I’m caught off guard, because I didn’t tell them anything. I didn’t think I had. But I guess I did, just not in the usual way. Somewhere between the songs I kept repeating and the ones I didn’t skip, I had already said more than I realised.
I think that’s what I like about it. Music lets me be subtle without disappearing completely. I can hide behind it, soften things, make them feel less overwhelming while still being there. It gives me a way to feel everything fully without having to articulate it perfectly.
Pieces of my heart will always exist in the songs I repeat, in the lyrics I hold onto, and in the lines that feel a little too accurate for comfort. My feelings will live in the playlists I’ll never name properly, and in the notes I’ll pretend don’t mean anything.
I know it’s not exactly communication, but it’s not silence either. It’s somewhere in between, where I don’t have to say everything, but somehow, the important parts still get heard by the right people. Maybe that’s why I keep going back to it. Not just because it’s easier, but because it feels safer. There’s less risk in being understood through something else than in saying it all yourself.